Ronda Rousey is fighting Liz Carmouche and she’s expected to trample her—but what if Rousey doesn’t?
What if the unthinkable happens and Rousey, the UFC’s poster-woman for women’s MMA, gets beaten? And what happens if she gets beaten badly?
How badly? Like Mark Hominick vs. Jose Aldo or Joe Stevenson vs. BJ Penn badly. What on earth would happen then? Could women’s MMA really survive that?
No, it couldn’t.
If Rousey loses—even if it’s by a decision—WMMA in the UFC will almost definitely crash and burn.
UFC president Dana White was an outspoken critic of WMMA and once said that women would “never” fight in the UFC. Yet now, here they are, about to fight in the UFC.
Obviously, it’s no coincidence that as soon as an attractive, young, silver-tongued, female fighter showed up that he suddenly changed his tune; Ronda Rousey is an easy sell. Unfortunately, other prominent female fighters don’t have as much earning potential.
Zuffa (the company that owns the UFC and Strikeforce), throughout its voyage through WMMA, has shown that the only way it knows how to market a female athlete is through sex appeal. Why else would they have put Sarah Kaufman in that ridiculous white leather outfit?
The UFC needs Ronda Rousey for their female-fighter venture to be successful. It’s sad that when women are involved, sex appeal has to be part of the equation but that’s the unpleasant truth.
If Rousey‘s star is dimmed by a loss, or if it goes outright supernova by a devastating beatdown, Dana White’s tune will change. After all, his commitment to WMMA seems tepid at best. “We’re kind of playing with it,” he said. “I know this, over the next couple of years we’ve got fights in the 135-pound division, good fights. Ronda’s the champ and she’ll come in and we’ll see how this thing plays out.”
Should Carmouche win, White will likely deem that the foray into WMMA played out poorly, and the plug will in all likelihood be pulled. The upshot of the UFC’s WMMA experiment would be naught but for the disappointment of Zuffa brass.
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